Gov. Gavin New­som Gives Clear­est Sign Yet He’s Going To Gun For Pres­i­den­cy With Response To Biden’s Hunter Par­don

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cal­i­for­nia Gov. Gavin New­som dis­tanced him­self from Pres­i­dent Joe Biden Tues­day by con­demn­ing the par­don­ing of his son, Hunter Biden.

New­som, a sus­pect­ed pres­i­den­tial con­tender in 2028, told Politi­co he is “dis­ap­point­ed” by Biden’s deci­sion to issue a “full and uncon­di­tion­al” par­don after he had repeat­ed­ly assured the nation that he would not grant one for his son. The Cal­i­for­nia governor’s pub­lic dis­ap­proval for Biden could indi­cate that he may be try­ing to dis­tance him­self for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es, as he has been a staunch defend­er of the pres­i­dent through­out his term in the Oval Office.

“With every­thing the pres­i­dent and his fam­i­ly have been through, I com­plete­ly under­stand the instinct to pro­tect Hunter,” New­som said. “But I took the pres­i­dent at his word. So by def­i­n­i­tion, I’m dis­ap­point­ed and can’t sup­port the deci­sion.”

New­som has staunch­ly sup­port­ed and defend­ed Biden against con­cerns about his men­tal capa­bil­i­ty to serve as com­man­der-in-chief. Fol­low­ing the president’s dis­as­trous debate per­for­mance in June, New­som told MSNBC’s Alex Wag­n­er in June that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty should not “turn [their] back” on the pres­i­dent over one bad night while many Democ­rats began call­ing on Biden to step out of the race.

The Cal­i­for­nia gov­er­nor had report­ed­ly posi­tioned him­self to be a pos­si­ble con­tender in the 2024 pri­ma­ry if Biden decid­ed to step down from the race, accord­ing to The Hill. If he becomes a 2028 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, he is expect­ed to raise a sub­stan­tial amount of mon­ey as he is well known across the nation and will like­ly take a strong stance against Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump and his base.

The pres­i­dent and the White House con­tin­u­ous­ly told the pub­lic that Hunter would not receive a par­don from his father. White House press sec­re­tary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters dur­ing sev­er­al press brief­in­gs through­out the last sev­er­al months that Hunter would not receive a par­don, while Biden told ABC News anchor David Muir dur­ing a June 13 inter­view that he had ruled out par­don­ing his son. (RELATED: Biden’s Move To Par­don Son Hunter Draws Scathing Rebukes From Fel­low Lib­er­als, Nev­er-Trumpers)

The pres­i­dent par­doned his son on Sun­day from all con­vict­ed crimes or pend­ing crim­i­nal charges com­mit­ted between Jan. 1, 2014 and Dec. 1, 2024.

Hunter was par­doned from his con­vic­tion of three felony counts relat­ing to his pur­chase of a Colt Cobra in Octo­ber 2018 after writ­ing false infor­ma­tion on the pur­chase form regard­ing his drug use at the time. He also faced up to 17 years in prison for nine charges relat­ed to his alleged fail­ure to pay $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es from 2016 to 2019.

The par­don fur­ther includes any poten­tial charges he could have faced in rela­tion to his over­seas busi­ness deal­ings in Ukraine, Chi­na and Roma­nia, in which House Repub­li­cans are inves­ti­gat­ing whether Biden par­tic­i­pat­ed in an influ­ence ped­dling scheme to help his son and broth­er, James, with their busi­ness. George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty law pro­fes­sor Jonathan Tur­ley said Tues­day that Hunter could face charges that are not pro­tect­ed by the par­don if he com­mit­ted per­jury dur­ing con­gres­sion­al tes­ti­monies about his busi­ness deal­ings.

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